This article explores and explains the subjectivity of self-helping adult learners, as depicted in contemporary, best-selling self-help books. It interrogates how those self-help texts embody particular features of self-helping subjectivity by appropriating neoliberalist perspectives on self and the world. It illuminates four salient features of…

The helpfulness of self-help reading was explored through interviews with 6 female self-help readers. Themes derived through phenomenological data analysis suggested that there is a distinct structure to the self-help reading experience, including self-help reading as a medium for revisioning of self. Implications for counseling practice and…

In apparently no time at all, the distance between the once doggedly segregated religion and self-help shelves has shortened, and the two genres are fraternizing openly. Librarians have noticed an influx of books that cannot be definitively classified as religion or self-help. It is a phenomenal time for the breed of books dubbed "spiritual…

Many adults search for spiritual guidance and direction and persist in seeking answers to life in today's fast-paced world. With burgeoning economic challenges, political corruption, war in Iraq, poverty, health care concerns, environmental concerns, rising fuel costs, violence, racism, and oppression, many adults seek solace and greater…